Though Henry could be a cruel and
heartless man - as the trial of Anne Boleyn and the marriage to Anne of Cleves
might indicate - he was also highly intelligent.

He enjoyed watching plays, he
wrote poetry and he was a skilled lute player. Some historians believe that he
wrote the famous song "Greensleeves". Henry also loved sports such as
wrestling and hunting. As a young man he was a skilled horse rider though as he
got older, he put on a lot of weight and this lead to him exercising less and
the less he exercised, the fatter he got. In the last few years of his life, he
was affected by ulcerous legs that turned gangrenous, he may have had syphilis
and he may have had osteomyelitis possibly caused by a jousting accident.

When Henry died on January 28th,
1547, few mourned his death. He had become highly unpredictable in his final
years and this alone made him more and more of a danger to those who were near
to him.